Richard Lawrence – Compounding in Asia (EP.21)

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Richard Lawrence is the Chairman and Executive Director of The Overlook Group, a $5 billion investment organization focused on Asian equities that Richard founded in 1991. Over the past quarter-century, Overlook developed and implemented a disciplined investment and business philosophy that drove extraordinary results for its partners. Overlook has compounded capital at an annualized 14.5%, outperforming its benchmark by an insane 9% per annum. But that’s not all, as Richard would proudly tell you himself, the capital weighted return of the average investor in Overlook is nearly identical to the time weighted return over any period of time – a rare feat in the money management industry. Today’s asset base is the result of $4 billion of investment gains on top of $1 billion in contributed capital.

Our conversation starts with a look at investing in Asia in Overlook’s early days and walks through the particulars of the approach Richard takes to investing and running his business, including attractive investment attributes, management integrity, portfolio construction, selling discipline, and China Yangtze Power – the only stock the firm supersized in an SPV in its history. We discuss Overlook’s long-held cap on subscriptions and periodic reductions in its management fee, two business philosophies that have greatly contributed to Overlook’s success.

If you enjoyed my conversation with Tom Russo, you won’t want to miss this one with Richard.